Friday, February 8, 2013

Welcome, friends!Last week, in my "everything you need for a Cezanne study" Artful Friday post, I mentioned that I'd be blogging regularly on Fridays on our journey through the arts.Well, as you know, we are in the week bookended by performances of a truly amazing production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" in which my son is fortunate to have landed the role of "Bert."Here are a couple of my recent posts on this amazing production. Last weekend's shows were breathtaking, jaw dropping, chilling ( and witty too, from time to time!) This weekend will surely be fantastic as well. So, I'm starting out our reflection of The Arts this week with my son's involvement in this gem of the American Stage:

Timmy (Bert) and Steve (Joe Keller )

Now, in our homeschool this week, we've had a lot of fun with art:
Here goes:1.Milk Gallon Snowman:

Isn't this project adorable for a winter afternoon? I found it at The Better Mom along with many other great, fun finds! And how perfect for a day such as today where my corner of the world will be hit with a little snow...just a little.....Above, is a photo of the milk gallon snowman that one of my kids created. Cute, right? Just cut a hole in the back of the container and put a strand of white/clear Christmas lights in. Decorate the front, and there you go! I thought my kids may find this a bit juvenile, but they loved it. It looks very pretty on a table, as the sole light in the room, on a winter's night!

2. Gingerbread Houses.Yes, in February!

(I picked up a package of small candy canes, figuring that the boys could frost them to the corners of each house, for a sweet effect. The candy canes have all been eaten, of course, by now.)

In December our focus was mainly on faith-based activities, such as crafts around the O Antiphon Days, creating Jesse Tree ornaments and readingthis series, of Advent classics, penned by Arnold Ytreeide. Do you know this series? Please look into, if not. You will find it a lovely supplement to your family advent and lenten activities We'll soon be pulling this Lenten gemoff the shelf....wow, less than a week until Lent begins. Better eat or hide those gingerbread houses! So, in addition to the usual hustle of Christmas decorating, homeschooling, additional choir rehearsals, wrapping, shopping, celebrating a wonderful boy's December birthday.... we just never got around to creating these candy houses.Oh my goodness, how fun and easy! Although the supply of gumdrops is a bit chintzy! I bought this kit at Michael's, but you can easily order one similar online here. And here's acompleted house: Cute!

:

3. Finger Knitting for Fun and for Gifting:

My little guy is pretty crafty! Some of his creations are pictured above. Aren't they just lovely?

All he needed to do was take a quickie How-to-Finger-Knit class at our library and he was off and running!

He's made a tremendous amount of these beautiful strands of finger knitted pieces

We use them as drapes over our entertainment center, garland on our tree and he's given

He sometimes knits two and three skeins ( balls?) of yarn together to give a thicker and even lovelier, more colorful "look" to his creations.

This week, he created several more to gift to his director and the producers/ crew with whom he become friends and received awesome advice in his fantastic theater experience.

4. Piano Study:As you know, I am teaching my younger son piano; but my older son would also like to learn to read music...although he has no real interest in learning keyboard, per se. K taught himself recorder and harmonica. He plays a mean "Piano Man." Really.

I studied piano for about eight years as a child/teen and although I'm not a natural, I did play piano in my high school orchestra (for only one year though!) until the new conductor hired in my sophomore year who was a former first violin a the Met (I kid you not ) was, obviously, extremely militant about his musicians. Rightly so. The pressure, as pianist, was intense and so I asked to be moved. I was placed in the percussion section. Yup, me, drummer-girl. Hmmm....There, I played the glock, the xylophone and the snare drum for the next three (fun) years! If you can read piano music, you can do these instruments as well, easily enough! My hubby has "music genes" too, since his Grandma was a church organist. Pretty cool, huh?As for our family piano study, there are a varietyof resources I'm using to teach the the kids, which I link here. ENJOY!

5. Marshmallow Snowman:Here's another adorable, fun project for a day such as today~I also stumbled onto this at The Better Mom. You just need white paint, black paint, pretzels for arms and of course, mini marshmallows!

Here's an adorable picture of this craft on this terrific site:

On of my kids' versions....

Not completed as you see! I'll update when their snowman are completed.......The school day ran long yesterday and and they were literally creating their snow pictures after dinner as we needed to get out to their evening activities: one had basketball; the other, a book club at the library.Thanks for stopping in, friends! Perhaps you can share your art-sy endeavors from your homeschool in the comments? That would be lovely.Have a fantastic weekend!

For more "Artful Friday" posts,

you might like to click below.....

They're all here if you'd like to dust off something from the archives:

HOw fun your son is in a play:) My daughter did her first one this summer and has been bugging me to find another one for her to participate in ever since:) The acting bug has bitten, I think. Great job on the snowman you could line up the drive way with those things. So great your kids are learning piano, mine are too, but they out grew my limited knowledge so i had to hire a piano teacher.

Now that I know your title picture is of the badlands it will always remind me of our wonderful holiday there many years ago. I hope we can make it back there one day:)Blessings

Thank you!!!! for stopping in to comment!How nice of you! And that will be me soon, needing to hand my kids over to a "real" piano teacher!We are getting a massive blizzard right now! So the snow craft is perfect!Have a great weekend!

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